Graduate Keynote. Golf Grip Force Evaluation in Individuals with and without Hand Arthritis Using a New Wearable Sensor Technology

BACKGROUND Hand osteoarthritis (H-OA) is the most common type of osteoarthritis largely affecting individuals over 45. H-OA involves pain, loss of grip strength and limiting participation in recreational activities such as golf. Currently, a number of ‘arthritic’ grips are designed using joint protection principles to ‘reduce hand forces and tight gripping’. However, no comprehensive examinations in their effectiveness have been conducted. HYPOTHESIS The purpose of this study is to systematically analyse the hand forces produced from various golf grips and arthritis grips at the distal-phalanges of the hand-grip interface in individuals with and without hand arthritis using new wearable sensor technology. METHODS The finger forces in the hand were measured using Pressure Profiles FingerTPS system for participant’s bottom gripping hand thumb, index, middle and ring fingers. The participants performed 3 golf shots using a real ball on artificial turf with 12, mid-iron clubs fitted with various types of standard and arthritis grips. RESULTS Preliminary results of 4 healthy participants demonstrated that serrated style golf grips designed for players with arthritis produced some of the highest forces. Also, players with larger hand length measures produce higher forces in smaller diameter grips and small hand length measures in larger diameter grips. DISCUSSION These preliminary results demonstrate the possibility that ‘arthritic’ golf grips are not appropriately designed for the given user along with the potential relationship between grip geometry and hand size to finger forces. In better understanding the mechanics of arthritis and its relation to sports, the design of more advanced sporting equipment can be developed

A least squares method for CVT calibration in a RLC capacitor discharge circuit.

In many applications, the ability to monitor the output of a capacitive discharge circuit is imperative to ensuring the reliability and accuracy of the unit. This monitoring is commonly accomplished with the use of a Current Viewing Transformer (CVT). In order to calibrate the CVT, the circuit is assembled with a Current Viewing Transformer (CVR) in addition to the CVT and the peak outputs compared. However, difficulties encountered with the use of CVRs make it desirable to eliminate the use of the CVR from the calibration process. This report describes a method for determining the calibration factor between the current throughput and the CVT voltage output in a capacitive discharge unit from the CVT ringdown data and values of initial voltage and capacitance of the circuit. Previous linear RLC fitting work for determining R, L, and C is adapted to return values of R, L, and the calibration factor, k. Separate solutions for underdamped and overdamped cases are presented and implemented on real circuit data using MathCad software with positive results. This technique may also offer a unique approach to self calibration of current measuring devices

GLIMPSE: I. A SIRTF Legacy Project to Map the Inner Galaxy

GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire), a SIRTF Legacy Science Program, will be a fully sampled, confusion-limited infrared survey of the inner two-thirds of the Galactic disk with a pixel resolution of \~1.2" using the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 microns. The survey will cover Galactic latitudes |b| <1 degree and longitudes |l|=10 to 65 degrees (both sides of the Galactic center). The survey area contains the outer ends of the Galactic bar, the Galactic molecular ring, and the inner spiral arms. The GLIMPSE team will process these data to produce a point source catalog, a point source data archive, and a set of mosaicked images. We summarize our observing strategy, give details of our data products, and summarize some of the principal science questions that will be addressed using GLIMPSE data. Up-to-date documentation, survey progress, and information on complementary datasets are available on the GLIMPSE web site: www.astro.wisc.edu/glimpse.Comment: Description of GLIMPSE, a SIRTF Legacy project (Aug 2003 PASP, in press). Paper with full res.color figures at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/glimpse/glimpsepubs.htm

Abstracts from the 8th International Conference on cGMP Generators, Effectors and Therapeutic Implications

This work was supported by a restricted research grant of Bayer AG

Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity politics in South and Southeast Asia

In the intimate context of domestic service, power relations take on one of their most personalized forms. Domestic servants and their employers must formulate their political identities in relationship to each other, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes challenging broader social hierarchies such as those based on class, caste or rank, gender, race and ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and kinship relations. This pathbreaking collection builds on recent examinations of identity in the postcolonial states of South and Southeast Asia by investigating the ways in which domestic workers and their employers come to know and depict one another and themselves through their interactions inside and outside of the home. This setting provides a particularly apt arena for examining the daily negotiations of power and hegemony. Contributors to the volume provide rich ethnographic analyses that avoid a narrow focus on either workers or employers. Rather, they examine systems of power through specific topics that range from the notion of nurture for sale to the roles of morality and humor in the negotiation of hierarchy and the dilemmas faced by foreign employers who find themselves in life-and-death dependence on their servants. With its provocative theoretical and ethnographic contributions to current debates, this collection will be of interest to scholars in Asian studies, women\u27s studies, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies.https://ecommons.luc.edu/facultybooks/1190/thumbnail.jp